Protoavis said:My understanding (from unknown origin so I could just be making it up) is that LAs are usually LAAs, is this correct?

That is also my understanding. Similar to many of the new OT's that look more Oriental like are OT x O or OTO's. I believe it is a reasonable assumption that all of these (LAA's, OTO's, & LOO's) are triploids.

Hello,

My Easter Lilies are growing green sprouts along their stems. Is this good or bad? What are the best steps to be taken after this?

Thank you.

Zibany said:
My Easter Lilies are growing green sprouts along their stems. Is this good or bad? What are the best steps to be taken after this?

These are stem bulblets. Many lilies have these small bulbs form on the stem during the growing season. Some are right at the surface of the soil and others are deeper in the soil on the stem above the main bulb. Nothing you need to do now. In the fall after the stem has died back you can carefully remove these and plant them somewhere else or you can just leave them but I would recommend you add some mulch over them to protect them in winter.

Australis said:That is my understanding also. I managed to find a paper on more complex crosses a while ago and noted my conclusions in this post: https://garden.org/thread/view...

Thank you.

This sadly probably doesn't help my thoughts....I need to work out a plan.

I found a source of L.Philippenese (evergreen flowers in as little as 8 months...seriously that's two traits that I'd like very very much!), it seems like it can breed with longiflorum without major difficulty. But based on above the LAA cross with philippense won't work.

Anyone know if LL x AAAA is possible without embryo culture?

Protoavis said:
Anyone know if LL x AAAA is possible without embryo culture?

Most anything is possible. It is not very probable. I think it is a numbers game - if you make enough crosses over enough years with different growing conditions it is possible you will get seed. I would recommend cut-style pollination - all the wide crosses onto longiflorum use this method because the style on longiflorum is very long compared to most lilies (pollen tubes only grow so long) and there are inhibitors in the style that can stop the pollen tube from growing.

I think it's funny reading my question from just a month and a half ago lol. I came to ask a "new" question (at the end) and saw my question above and after having read various papers to do with the "5 of a kind" theory (which from what I understand somewhat reliably indicates healthy endosperm production which should overcome that significant barrier to germination, simplifying it a lot, mothers chromosomes contribute 2 per, while pollen contributes 1 per so LAA x AAAAA = 2L and 6A, so 6 of kind = healthy endosperm...sure the number of seed may be low but that's a different issue).

Anyways my "new" question is more observational for anyone from the more temperate regions of the world (I basically planted the middle of spring last year so I don't know what "normal" is yet).
I order quite a lot of bulbs, they came mid winter, I live in Sydney Australia where winter temps almost never reach freezing so I planted them straight away. 3 weeks later and I have a bunch of stems, it's still technically winter (just a winter that doesn't get cold, 18C/64F in the day and a cold cold night is around 4C/40F although based on readings it only gets warmer at night from now on) nothing to worry about right? Things might just bloom earlier than normal? The bulbs from last year are producing stems they just haven't broken the surface yet (I checked!) so they may be a better indicator of "normal" timing?

I've also had a handful of baby Asiatics emerge last week (these were purchased last year as a part of a mixed Asiatic/LA baby bulb pack and I repotted them to separate them out a bit more this year). Nothing else has started to come up - not even the martagons, which were first off the bat last year (and I added another one of those this year).

After pollination how long does it take to be obvious that pollination took?

My understanding is that many people use the stigma curving skywards as an indication of successful pollination (in my experience this happens over a couple of days). However, I would note that just because pollination has occurred does not mean seed will be produced - I have seen (both this year and last year) cases where the stigma has turned skyward and the only pollen it could possibly have had on it was its own (and last year I tracked one as a experiment and as expected, the seed pod failed to form).

Joshua is right. You will find many comments on the web that upturned stigmas indicate successful pollination. It's really a hope, not an absolute reality. But, while an upturned stigma may or may not indicate anything, I think you can be sure that if the stigma does not turn up, there was no successful pollination.

How long it takes for actual fertilization of the ovary to occur is highly dependent on temperature, the species background and length of the pistil. I am guessing it would take anywhere from a day to a week.

(My sense of time is poor)

I have quite a few upward stigma it just nothing seems to be swelling in an obvious sign of pod development. With roses, daylilies, hippeastrum, etc the pod swelling is usually obvious a few days later, I'm just not convinced I'm seeing pods develop unless its very slow.


-edit- although now, having just checked again after getting home from work, some of the down facing use-to-be flowers are now very upward facing (but thin) pods. One of the Eyeliner x Pearl Jennifer looks a bit swollen compared with everything else....maybe it's just a slow to start swelling compared to what I'm use to with often genus flowers, none of straight 4n x 4n asiatics look swollen yet.

So how does one assume pollenation when utilizing cut style pollinating? Lol

Upturned stigma can be a sign, but in the more broad, difficult crosses, as the saying goes, don't count your chickens before they hatch. You will only be sure in full maturation. And even then starting seed that "looks good" in those crosses, some can fail still.

Well said, mags. Also, I had a good number of upright but "squishy" pods that pretty much presented nothing but chaff.

Protoavis, lilium pods are devastatingly slow compared to many other genera. I like the downward facing lilies, they have the bonus of a delightful little crook in the pedicel being the first sign that a pod is turning skyward. I often run a finger tip along the pedicel as the dip is evident to the touch when the eyes may be deceived... and it just feels so good!

That's odd, does it happen at the species level? I guess it must given how many of the sections haven't entirely intermingled.....I wonder what the evolutionary advantage of the delay would be.

Approx 2 weeks later, one of the eyeliner pods is swelling noticeably more than anything else. One of the longiflorum x honesty pods (don't think it will reach maturity but you never know) is also noticeably larger than any of the other longiflorum pods. Straight 4n x 4n asiatic nothing noticeable so far.

But seriously, it's really slow swell up compared with most flowers out there, it's usually super obvious as soon as petals fall off...I just find it super odd.

I have had zero luck with using eyeliner. Either as a kid, or pollen parent. I have tried it a couple times each year both ways. Hope you have better luck than I did.

I'm not expecting much from it (eyeliner), I mean most crosses I'm doing are of limited success to begin with (ie OA x 4n A, LA x 4n A), or rely on Honesty with it's weird chromosome configuration (technically tetraploid, one set of paired chromosomes and two unpaired) and low viability pollen (It looks like some White Dragon x Honesty may have taken...granted it could all be chaft or some weird self fertilization/apomixis event).

Eyeliner is just an off chance, I know Della mentioned getting a few seed from it, granted thick and unable to determine if embryo's were present...but seed is an optimistic sign compared with unknowns.

I'm concerned about a torch lily plant. This is the first year it has bloomed, but the blooms have no color and are drying out at the bottom. The bed it's in gets full sun and lots of water. What could be wrong? Hoping for clues!

What do you mean it has no color? It looks like you have one of the yellow varieties. They don't all come in red/orange! An example from our data base:

Red Hot Poker (Kniphofia uvaria 'Candlelight')

These are not true lilies (genus Lilium) but genus Kniphofia, torch lilies or Red Hot Pokers, even if they are not red. I've always called them Poker Lilies so the color doesn't matter.